Changed
by betweenacts
Summary: The Doctor stops to realize how much he was changed. Happens right after the end of 'A Christmas Carol'.


The Doctor vowed to take Amy and Rory to spend some alone time on Earth after the failed trip. He was playing with the controls when Amy came into the console room.

"Are you ok, Doctor?" she asked.

The Doctor was thinking and trying to pretend nothing had happen. "I'm not ok, I'm cool. Everything is cool, not as much as bow ties or fezzes. But pretty much there. And you? How are you Amelia Pond?"

"Don't lie to me, Doctor. I'm not stupid. What happened before we found you? I know about the Christmases and Scrooge and all that..."

"Kazran asked me if I could live one day, only one day with the person I loved which day would it be... Which day would it be to you, Pond?"

"Only one day?... Melody's Birthday party, during Macarena, I don't know what happened but Rory, actually me, I finally kissed Rory and..."

"Abigail chose Christmas, Christmas day." he twirled around the console and pushed a lever. "I love Christmas, when it doesn't involve Sycorax invasion or Santa Robots. I love Christmas it's so Christmas-y.

"What day would you choose?" she asked and he sat on the stairs and called her to sit beside him. "Are you going to tell me something personal? I would love to see you doing that."

"You remind me so much of her." he blurted out in a voice full of sorrow.

"The one you love? I thought you were married to River."

"I may be, but that's the future." she was usually pushy but Rory thought her that sometimes you had to wait to the other person's timing. "She was ginger, she is ginger. Stupid Time Lord, she is still alive."

"Which one of the gingers that the TARDIS showed me that time is she?" The Doctor had forgotten that before he bought Rory o travel with them, the TARDIS had shown all his past female companions to Amy.

"_Friends, chums, mates... No, not mates, forget mates."_ he remembered telling that to Amy.

"You know why I'm thinking about her? Not that I had realized before just now, but I did it. My big stupid brilliant brain didn't see it before."

"Why? Because of the question Kazran asked you?"

"No. Yes. Maybe... I'm thinking about her because she changed me." Amy thought he was bonkers and frowned trying to understand him. "I met her on Christmas day, long time ago for me. 2006 for you."

"The big web star thing and the Thames being drained? That Christmas?"

"Yes, as a matter of fact I drained the Thames."

"Right."

"I did too. Kazran... When I asked him who Abigail was he told me she was no one important. Do you know what I said to him?"

"Knowing you that you never met anyone who wasn't important." he smiled a sad smile that made him look every single one of the years he had.

"When I met Donna, I told her she was no one important. That was her name, Donna Noble. Also a bit fairytale, don't you think? She was important, actually the Most Important Woman in the Whole of Creation. And I wasn't even the one who gave her that name. There are planets in the sky because of her. Some planets started worshiping gingers, will take you there one day."

It was the first time Amy payed attention to the fact that the Doctor liked to put vital information in the middle of huge speeches about nothing, she tried to remember if by passing, or mistake, he had ever told her about Donna.

"And she changed you because you now know that every one is important. Love changes us." she looked in the direction of her bedroom with Rory.

"I told Kazran that a heartbreak was better than not loving in the first place. Or something like that, can't keep all the details at my age. Donna taught me that when... It doesn't matter. I'm getting old and sentimental, she would laugh at my face and make me make dinner for her." He stood up and tried to leave but Amy held his arm.

"It's always better to love than never loving at all. What happened to her?"

"She forgot me."

"Everything can be remember, and what can be remembered can come back. You taught me that." then she left to finally sleep.

The Doctor took a deep breath and made a vow, to leave Amy and Rory before they died or got lost. That was another thing Donna had taught him. Maybe seeing him like he was now couldn't hurt her, couldn't make her burn, but he was a changed man and could only hope that, if he was lucky, the universe would keep it's habit of converging on her.


End file.
